A Slower Pace for Walkers and Survivors

‘The Walking Dead’ Begins Season 4 on AMC

In the short life of AMC’s zombie-apocalypse series, “The Walking Dead,” the show’s band of survivors has started each season in extremis, on the run and looking for a safe haven. In Season 2 they found it on a farm; in Season 3, driven off the farm, they locked themselves inside a prison.

In Season 4, beginning on Sunday night, things are different. Not only are our heroes still at the prison, but they’ve also settled in and made themselves at home. There’s now a decision-making council to set rules for the growing population, swollen by stragglers. Meals are cooked in a communal kitchen, and children are going to school. Several new romances have bloomed (though not all will survive).

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"The Walking Dead" zombies return for Season 4 on Sunday on AMC.Credit
Gene Page/AMC

This new state of affairs is signaled immediately by the sight of Rick (Andrew Lincoln) — the conflicted but fearless leader who has shot, gouged, impaled, stomped and burned large quantities of the undead “walkers” — taking farming lessons from Hershel (Scott Wilson). In the absence of immediate danger, and with various murders and deaths weighing on his mind, Rick has traded in his revolver for a hoe and a bucket of slop.

The makers of “The Walking Dead” know that in television, as in life, everyone needs a break now and then, and perhaps they thought that after putting us through the wringer at the end of Season 3 — humans battling humans, mass murder, the deaths of original characters like Andrea (Laurie Holden) and Merle (Michael Rooker) — they would give us a respite early.

It’s a brave move, and some will find the relatively slow going a little disconcerting. The challenge with any extended zombie narrative is striking the right balance between gut-munching action and undergraduate philosophy seminar, and the first two episodes this season are pretty talky. If you’re in it for the ideas — Hershel snapping off some old growth and saying, “Things break, but they can still grow” — you’re all set. If you’re in it to see Michonne (Danai Gurira) unsheathe her katana and separate some walkers from their heads, you might get a little restless.

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The new season of "The Walking Dead" begins with the leader, Rick (Andrew Lincoln, right), learning farming from Hershel (Scott Wilson).Credit
Gene Page/AMC

Of course, “The Walking Dead” has become one of the most popular shows on television by consistently getting the balance right, despite successive changes in leadership. (The current showrunner, Scott Gimple, is the series’s third.) The seeds of future calamities are sown in the opening episodes — a mysterious increase in walkers outside one section of fence, a potentially disastrous visit from Mother Nature inside the prison — and there’s no reason to think that the tension won’t build steadily over the season. The signing of David Morrissey as a guest star again means that the megalomaniacal Governor, the force of evil last season, will pop up at some point.

“The Walking Dead” has always been able to refresh its cast organically, introducing new characters as they wander in from the wild or are discovered by the core group. Season 4 brings a sizable bunch, including Larry Gilliard of “The Wire” as a former Army medic. Among the returnees, Chandler Riggs continues to grow in the role of young Carl, as fully developed a character as you’ll find on television, and Mr. Wilson still gives the warmest, most assured performance on the show.

And while the mood generally ranges from somber to grim to despairing, the show has its own brand of humor. In the big action sequence on Sunday, a human who finds himself caught by the foot almost goes unnoticed by the walkers. One of them sees him lying on the floor, however: the walker who’s crawling because he doesn’t have any feet.

A version of this article appears in print on October 12, 2013, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Slower Pace For Walkers And Survivors. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe